From Bridgeport Public Schools
In June 2018, the ad-hoc committee brought the community together for the first time to talk about the plight of young boys of color across our K-12 school system. We brought parents, community leaders, students and educators together to talk about their perspective about the challenges facing boys and most important and untapped opportunities to improve their academic successes and beyond. This year, we are inviting the community back together in order to report back what we have done with the information collected and to continue this conversation about the state of our black boys in the classroom. In particular, we are inviting educators to the table to get the in-school and classroom perspective. ALL are welcome to attend and participate.
Thank you so much Mr. Grimaldi for posting this event that is the culmination of this year’s hard work by the all volunteer Great City Schools Males of Color committee. This event should be an eye opening experience for many. Hope to see you and many of OIB’s commenters there as well.
Thank you again
Joe
Joe,
I am not a parent, educator or community leader, but in the last five years I have spent nearly 600 days in Bridgeport public high school classrooms. It’s just me and the students. Some classrooms include students from surrounding suburbs.
The behavior of the students reflects what they are; teenagers. There is a clear difference though, in the norms of behavior of boys and girls of color that affect the learning environment.
Not all boys and girls of color are disruptive and defiant. Most of the disruptive and defiant students though, it seems, are of color.
The CEA is promoting the ‘Classroom Safety Bill’ (CGA Raised Bill 7110). It’s the CEA’s way of making them appear to be the voice of concerned educators. Perhaps you and the other board members are familiar with it. I assume this Bill will be discussed.
The behavior of students reflects the environment they are raised in by their parents. Educators, I have concluded, cannot undo the affects of bad parenting.
I am cynical in that these efforts to address “the plight of young boys of color across our K-12 school system” may be just a perpetuation of the victim mentality and excuses for bad behavior. I for one, am tired of people blaming society for their problems, most of which are caused by their behavior.
Perhaps the standard prescribed solution will be more guidance counselors and more programs to address the victim mentality. The problem is poor parenting, usually by people who should not be bringing children into the world.
Thank you , Tom White. Your comments are awesome and most appreciated because it’s people like you with your mindset that make this work necessary! Your comments embodied nearly every explicit and implicit bias that this committee is fighting to educate out of existence from our students lives!
I will forgive your comments for now as they are most likely (I hope) from a lack of education and proper parenting from an unenlightened lineage. It’s not your parents fault entirely either because it was likely passed down from their parents that grew up in a more overt racist society. I’d like to personally invite you to the forum to help break the vicious cycle of prejudice sand ignorance handed down to you. And sir may I ask that if you have procreated and passed on this biased thinking to your spawn bring them as well.
Hope to see you at the forum.
That’s all Black people need to do is take the advice of an avowed racist who has never met a person of color that he liked or respected.
There are many adverse influences on child and youth development. Parental unemployment and low wages, housing instability, concentration of disadvantage in segregated neighborhoods, stress, malnutrition, and health problems like asthma are among other harmful characteristics.
And this rather suggests that Tom (being) White is an exercise in victim blame, with its focus on poor character rather than poor services. Does Tom (being) White hold white parents accountable for all the school, church and movie theaters shootings or are those white males that perpetuate this nationwide violence just disturbed or have a mental illness?
In early childhood, many low-income students aren’t exposed to books. Contrast that with the amount of books in middle-income students’ homes. In low-income neighborhoods there is one book per every 300 children. In middle-income neighborhoods there are 13 books per one child. Children from low-income families hear as many as 30 million fewer words by the age of 4 than their higher-income peers.
Tom (being) White, you are the Ben Carson of OIB, intelligent, but a fucking fool. What schools have you been in that there were an equal number of white students and students of color or have the schools been predominantly children of color and wouldn’t that mean that most of the disruptive students are children of color. Behavior problems in schools have never been a race issue except in the minds of the bigoted.
I don’t take anything Donald Day says seriously, as most of it was likely copied and pasted.
Joe Sokolovic is a member of the Board of Education thanks to his misrepresentation of Republican Party values in requesting party endorsement.
My bias is based on real-world first-hand experience. If and when Joe Sokolovic awakens from his liberal slumber, he may begin to realize how foolish he sounds. Or, perhaps he will continue to make excuses for bad behavior and organize dog and pony shows that have no impact.
Perhaps Sokolovic should invite all the students who have been expelled and suspended so they can share their story about the bias of their teachers and principals. That would be amusing.
I stand by everything I said. I doubt that any teacher in attendance would disagree with me, although I doubt any teacher would waste their time attending (unless their union tells them to).
1. True Republican values are not the racist Rhetoric you are spewing.
2. The republicans did not “give” me the nomination I took it by collecting signatures door to door by myself when I turned in those signature a place on the ticket suddenly opened up this avoiding a primary. The reason I was not put on The ballot in the first place is that I am anti-charter.
3. I am the most fiscally conservative member of the board.
4. As a practicing DINO Democrat in name only as opposed to your run of the mill Bridgeport RINOS I can affect more change in this than any republican running for office.
5. Racist ideals like your parents taught you are not rampant nor specific to the splinter faction of the Republican Party to which you belong, many Democrats are also bigoted racists( they just aren’t dumb enough to voice it most of the time).
6. I usually don’t feed he trips but your ignorant upbringing will be useful to promote the necessity of these forums.
7. It’s 2019 get your mind out of the 1800’s
Actually Joe, my parents were very open-minded people. They would be disappointed to see how the efforts for civil rights has devolved into defiance of expectations for reasonable behavior.
My bias is the result of my life experience. I have little tolerance for adults who make excuses for the bad behavior of teenagers and suggest that people like me are ‘culturally insensitive’. I am guilty of being insensitive to ‘ghetto culture’.
The school day began today with students exhilarated by a ‘boy fight’ (as opposed to a ‘girl fight’). Teachers and administrators try to provide students a safe, nurturing and stable learning environment. Sadly, you can take the males of color out of the ghetto, but, apparently, you can’t take the ghetto behavior out of many males (and females) of color.
Sorry to be so blunt, Joe. Good luck with your forum.
Don, Tom White doesn’t like when truth is posted with background and facts, he doesn’t believe in research on a subject and posting that information. Cut and paste shows the ability to understand the the subject and to support it with facts. It’s like a teacher giving a open book exam and you have to answer the questions that are given, well and open book won’t help you pass the exam if you don’t know the subject. Don think about this, Tom White is in front of black students with his mindset of Tom White being white, what a disgrace and possible harm this man can do with that mindset. It’s ok for Tom White to give his life experience but not a black man.